


tfw you're spending christmas with a werewolf

by BroSprite



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroSprite/pseuds/BroSprite
Summary: Just like the title says, Dave Strider is going to spend his christmas with a werewolf and he cannot, for the life of him, decide what to get the guy. What the FUCK do werewolves like?
Relationships: Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider/Dave Strider
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23
Collections: Stridercest Secret Santa





	tfw you're spending christmas with a werewolf

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Stridercest Secret Santa 2019! Just forgot to post!

Christmas was coming. 

Such a sentence brought about mixed feelings, one of which being excitement because hey, it’s fucking Christmas. Time to deck the halls and get severely jolly up in this bitch, but alas the notice of Christmas is on its way also brought around some other not-so-excited feelings.

Dread, anxiety, and above all, it brought around layers upon layers of stress. For most people, the stress was fixated on things like ‘whose house are we having Christmas at this year’ or ‘what will I cook’ or even ‘what do I buy this person’. 

In Dave’s particular case that last one hit close to home whereas the others were far out of the ballpark. Where would he have Christmas at? His own shitty apartment. What would he cook? Whatever he could afford, usually he’d just make a pizza or something but this year was a little different.

What would he buy? Mm. That question never bothered him in the past, he’d just get his coworkers a gag gift, send his online friends some sentimental bullshit and that was a wrap, Dave Strider was fucking done with this shopping bullshit. But that was past Dave, current Dave has already finished his Christmas shopping for literally everyone except one particular person.

Even now as rides the bus home from a somewhat lenient day at work, he can’t help but wonder just what to get the guy. This was going to be their first Christmas together and honestly, it was probably his first Christmas entirely. There was a pressing need to make this one count but when it came to gift-giving Dave was just thoroughly stumped.

It wasn’t that Bro was hard to shop for, no. He’d asked the guy early within the month for some Christmas ideas and Bro had given him dozens of ideas and then some. They’d be watching television together, a commercial would be on and the guy would just point at it, commenting that he’d like to have that without even thinking about it. He was a gold-mine of ideas and yet this whole thing was still really fucking hard. 

He’d got Bro some gifts so far, the basic generic shit though. The dude needed some new hats for his ears, bought him Minecraft so he’d have another game to play whenever Dave was gone, even got him some nice bones too(that were being kept at his work because the fucker would find them if he brought them to the apartment too early). Bro was, in a sense, easy to shop for. 

But Dave felt the pressing need to give him something more than that, something real authentic and genuine, something that would really mean something. 

But what?

A short sigh passes through him as the bus finally arrives at his stop. A few other people get up as well and soon they’re all getting off, at least after giving a quick thanks to the bus driver. Once outside in the cold ass air, Dave begins his short trek home on foot. His breath idly fogs up in front of him as he breathes, his hands make their way into his jacket’s pockets, fuck it’s cold. He should’ve brought his coat today but whatever, it was fine. Instead of thinking about the chilly weather, Dave instead brings his attention back to the situation at hand, the Christmas shit.

Oh, Christmas. What was even considered sentimental to the guy, anyway? What could he even do for him? Christmas was only days away at this point, it was too late to physically make something super personal, that and Dave didn’t have the skills to knit or whatever. He could maybe make Bro a shitty comic but he wasn’t too great at reading yet either.

“Yo.”

Maybe he could make a comic without words? Or just use simple words so Bro could read it? What value would he even get out of a comic, anyway?

“Dave.”

Okay so maybe he wouldn’t get Bro a homemade comic. What other skills did he have again? Maybe he could do some shitty selfies, print them out, make something hella rad? No, anyone could do that, then again it could be nice?

A sudden hand grabbing at his shoulder more or less temporarily stuns Dave. He manages to perform an entire one-sixty degree spin to face whoever the fuck just grabbed him, eyes wide behind his signature shades, surprised breath coming out in big huffs of fog as he looks.

“Y’looked deep ‘n thought. Didn’t even notice me, yeah?” Bro observes with his own signature look, a slightly tilted head much like a puppy would do. Although out in public he too wears his own shades, they aren’t quite like Dave’s own. They’re triangular and pointed, Dave had picked them out for him at a thrift store, Bro needed them to be able to go out in public like this. Even though he wore them now, Dave can practically imagine those eyes of his staring him down, so uncanny and bright, a shade of amber a human could never reach. Uncanny to a stranger, anyways, Dave is a big fan of staring right into them but that’s a subject for another time.

“Bro,” Dave breathes out, regaining his composure rapidly, “fuck, you scared the shit out of me. What are you, uh, what’cha doing out here?” Dave steps back, standing up straight, he’s cool, he’s chill, everything is fine. Granted it is a little strange seeing the guy out here like this, he never really goes out on his own, does he? 

Bro gives a half-assed shrug in response, still seeming to look directly at Dave. “Was waitin’ for ‘ya. Thought I could walk ‘ya home.” He says oh-so cooly, expression never cracking. 

How the fuck is the wolf-man so good at keeping himself composed? Especially while saying sweet ass shit like that? It’s bullshit, Dave knows it; but alas, Bro doesn’t and damn is he good at it.

Suave motherfucker.

To put the cherry on top, Bro moves closer. Dave, being mostly composed now, only raises an eyebrow to this before soon offering a gentle frown as Bro begins taking off his coat. His lips part to begin asking a question, though before he’s able to he receives an answer. Bro drapes his coat over Dave’s shoulders, soon wrapping an arm around him for extra measure and beginning to walk. 

“You ‘oughta wear a coat, it’s cold out here for ‘ya, right?”

“Yeah. I forgot. You.. you sure you ain’t gonna get cold though?” 

Bro shakes his head. “Nah, wolves don’t need coats. I’m good.” 

There are a few moments of silence as they begin walking to the apartment. Dave muses over Christmas for the hundredth time today before glancing up at Bro just slightly, a question tracing along his tongue.

“You ready for Christmas? Like, shopping wise ‘n all?”

Bro turns his head to look at Dave before cracking a grin, one that just barely reveals those jagged teeth of his.

“Hell yeah.”

Son of a bitch he’s got his Christmas shopping done. 

“Dude, nice.” Is all Dave replies, though deep down he cannot possibly fucking fathom what Bro, the werewolf without a job, got him for Christmas.

“Mm, Dave?” 

Dave looks up from his phone in favor of glancing at Bro, who sits across from him on the edge of the bed. He’s only got boxers on currently, as within Dave’s apartment they’re safe. He can be himself to an extent. 

“Yeah?”  
“Does Christmas start at midnight?” He asks, performing that signature puppy head tilt, this time with his two furry ears gently twitching along with it. His ears are cute, there’s an urge to crawl over to him across the bed and give his head a pet, but Dave refrains himself from that. Bro likes his head being pet, yes, but sometimes it seems a ‘lil weird. Sure, he’s technically a werewolf and all but that doesn’t mean he isn’t somewhat human, it’s hard finding a safe ground to treat him on. Sometimes Bro seems like he’s more wolf than human, eating his food in a savage nature, chewing on sticks, just dumb dog shit like that.

Other times Bro looks at you with intelligent amber eyes and a human face, just like he’s doing now.

“Oh. Technically yeah, but we’ll celebrate when we wake up? So in the morning.” Dave explains casually, to which Bro gives a quick nod, seeming to think it over. After a few seconds pass he begins to move, crawling across the bed towards Dave before sitting down beside him.

Oh?

He’s silent despite having moved, so Dave decides to try starting a conversation.

“Are you like, excited about it ‘n all? Granted, it's not like I’m doing anything big but hey, there’s presents ‘n shit. Plus it’s like basically your first Christmas, yeah?” Dave throws in that last fact while fully knowing that yes, this is Bro’s first Christmas. 

Which is wild considering the guy is like, older than him. Honestly, this entire situation is fucking wild, admittedly. Dave can’t help but think about how strange it is sometimes, how Bro ended up in his life...

It’d been early this year when they’d met, back when he’d lived near the outskirts of the city. Dave hadn’t been able to afford a place deeper within the city yet, so he’d lived farther out, closer to the countryside. He’d been living there for a few months and every so often at night, he’d heard howling in the distance. At the time he’d just thought it was sort’ve cool, hearing what seemed to be a wolf late at night. He didn’t even give it a second thought, never, it was just ‘cool’ and that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Until one night he’d heard yipping. At first, yet again, Dave hadn’t thought much of it, he’d just thought it was cool and figured it would die down soon enough.

It didn’t.

It wasn’t long before he was lying down in bed, listening to the yipping out in the distance. No matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t sleep, the fucking thing wouldn’t shut up, somewhere out there some animal was preventing him from sleeping. After an entire hour of listening to this shit, Dave had finally worked up the nerve to get out of bed, get dressed, and head out. Usually, he wasn’t the adventurous type, but goddamn he couldn’t fucking sleep. Chances are it was just a dog of some sort, he’d shoo it off into the night and go back to bed, simple enough.

He’d forgotten all about the supposed wolves howling late at night.

What he found wasn’t a dog, but was a wolf. A yipping wolf out only a short walk into the late-night countryside, a wolf that seemed too distressed to notice him for a few moments, a wolf that although within the darkness, seemed to have the brightest eyes Dave had ever seen.

A wolf caught in a snare. 

He can’t move. Dave’s frozen, crimson eyes staring down the wild creature, watching it continue to jerk against the trap before letting out high-pitched yips, perhaps calling for help? Suddenly the sound isn’t annoying, no, it’s almost pitiful to hear, it fucking makes his heartache and- 

The wolf sees him now. Those big, bright eyes are staring at him, it’s frozen, he’s frozen, the air is frozen, time is frozen, it’s frozen, frozen, frozen.

And in what seems to be an instant, it begins properly freaking the fuck out. 

Dave’s still stunned as the creature begins to flail about aimlessly, there’s the sound of metal clanking as its legs attempt to sprint but there’s also the sound of the wolf itself, the scream-like cries it emits, the growling deep in its throat. It’s going ape fucking shit and Dave can only stand there and watch. 

He can’t leave it like this. He already knows it, he’d be haunted by the guilt if he just left this thing here but the very notion of getting closer to it is, uh, pretty fuckin’ intimidating. It’s a wild wolf but in the end, that doesn’t stop Dave. Slowly he approaches with baby steps, beginning to whisper sweet nothings to the wolf.

“Hey, hey, hey... It’s okay, baby, stop, c’mon, I’m gonna help you, ‘kay? I won’t hurt you, sweetie, honey, please quit freaking out you’re really hurting yourself there- oh, okay, you’re looking at me now.”

The wolf was, in fact, looking at him. It had paused.

“Okay, good, yes, keep looking right at me. Good wolf, yes, it’s okay, no don’t start baring your teeth listen I’m just going to help you, okay? Please for the love of god stop baring your fucking man-eating ass teeth.”

The wolf finally stopped baring its man-eating ass teeth.

“Good wolf, fuck yes. See? We are vibing right now. You and me, we are on the same length, yeah? Now.. I’m really fucking nervous about invading your personal space but I just, I have to get to this trap, okay? You don’t wanna end up on someone’s wall, do you?”

Although the wolf didn’t answer this, Dave can imagine it did not want to end up on someone’s wall.

“Exactly. So you’re gonna just sit tight and- ohmygodpleasedon’tbiteme- let me just, just get this, okay?” Somewhere in that last bit, Dave’s voice had dropped to a whisper. He’s absolutely invading the wolf’s personal bubble now, he can literally feel it’s breath on his side and fuck is it scary.

But it isn’t attacking him. 

Good. Okay. He can work with this.

It takes a minute of trial and error to disengage the trap clamped around the wolf’s leg, most of the trial and error being Dave having to stop every few seconds because of the wolf’s growling. Upon finally freeing the animal he scurries back, putting several feet between them and breathing heavy, wide eyes watching it.

The wolf looks down at its leg. It seems to observe the bleeding wound before craning its head to lick at the wound once, twice, three times is the charm before it turns its head back around to look at him.

They’re making eye-contact again.

Something is different, this time. The way it looks at him, it, it almost looks human? It’s face, there’s something human about it- its, its body. 

Its entire fucking body is changing. 

The process is fast. Fur seems to fade away into nothing, a snout becomes flat, its entire body twists and morphs until finally a man is left there.

A wolf-man. 

A werewolf.

“Yeah. I’m excited for Christmas. I have plans.” Bro tells him, snapping Dave’s ass out of the flashback almost too suddenly.

Bro still sits beside him, ears perked, intelligent eyes staring him down. Despite being primarily human in this form, those wolf-ears of his really stand out atop his head, their dark color contrasting with his lighter hair.

“Plans,” Dave repeats, instantly intrigued. 

“Yup.” Is all Bro offers back before then leaning towards Dave, and resting his head upon his shoulder. 

Dave is still for a few moments before slowly leaning back against him, a hand finally raising up to begin running through Bro’s hair.

Dave can’t fucking fathom what the fuck Bro could have planned, but he doesn’t inquire any further. No, instead he just enjoys the moment, petting Bro’s head and sitting there, entirely at peace with the world.

Christmas morning starts out like any other morning. Bro wakes Dave up and for the first several minutes of the day, they lay there together. Bro’s already wide awake, so whenever Dave threatens to fall back asleep he comes in closer, gently running his hand through Dave’s hair and nudging him a bit. 

“Merry Christmas.” Dave finally utters between a yawn, moving to sit up and start the day. 

“Merry Christmas.” Bro mimics, already moving to get out of bed now that Dave’s properly awake.

Although it’s subtle, Dave can see his tail faintly swaying; he’s excited. That thought alone brings his heart to fucking swell, it’s time to start this Christmas shit. 

Bro’s favorite meal is breakfast, but this morning he skips it in favor of sitting beside the Christmas tree, looking over at Dave expectantly. Dave follows suit, plopping down beside Bro and letting out a low chuckle.

“You seem excited. You wanna open the first one?” Dave offers, looking over at Bro. He doesn’t hesitate at all, reaching at the nearest gift with his name on it and beginning to open. Dave’s a bit surprised with how quick he is, but then again it isn’t like he has proper gift etiquette or anything like that. Bro hastily rips shit open, then his tail begins beating against the floor rapidly as he looks over the first of many gifts.

The first gift he’d opened was a fucking bone. The delicate wrapping, both gift-paper, and plastic were already torn apart and Bro’s jaws were wrapped around it, gnawing for a few short seconds before looking over at Dave, eyes bright.

“Thmmmk yuuu.” He mumbles out, still gnawing on the bone. 

“I thought you might like it, it was a hit or miss type of gift,” Dave admits with a small smile. Fuck yeah, first gift down, several more to go. 

The next gift Bro opens is Minecraft, which despite how clearly he wants to go try it out right then and there, he doesn’t. After that, there’s an apartment theme, as gifts switch between those for a dog and those for a human. Extremely durable chew toys, bacon-scented gifts, rubber balls, then a scarf, heated blanket, and various knick-knacks of the sorts. 

For the most part, it’s like a traditional Christmas, except Dave still hasn’t opened any gifts. Admittedly he hasn’t even seen any gifts Bro’s gotten for him, as Bro had claimed he was hiding them until the big day. Usually, Dave would take turns with whoever he was with but so far, Bro was lavishing within all the gifts.

And for once Dave was oddly content with this, just watching. He just looked so happy, that large tail of his was constantly flopping about, his teeth were showing in large grins, and he didn’t seem the slightest bit disappointed with what he’d gotten.

Maybe Dave had just been stressing out about this too much, fuck. This was like getting a gift for a child, Bro literally liked fucking everything.

He’d stressed countless hours for nothing.

After watching Bro delightfully react to each and every single gift, he suddenly stands.

“One second,” he offers before darting out of the room, to which Dave just remains there on the floor, legs crossed, offering a single raised eyebrow.

Bro returns moments later with three presents. Bro sets them in front of Dave before taking a seat, looking at him expectantly.

Holy shit he’s horrific at wrapping. The gifts, god, their shaped strange and surely have several layers of wrapping upon them, it’s nearly impossible to tell what’s in them. One is rather long but bulky, the other relatively normally shaped, the last? Tiny. Small. 

Dave goes for the longest one first. Unlike Bro, he takes care of the wrapping, taking his oh-so-sweet time before finally being revealed with wood.

Wood?

He unwraps further before coming to the realization of just what this first long gift is.

It’s a stick. An actual stick, one from a tree, a fucking stick. Dave can’t help but let his expression crack, no, in fact, he can’t even attempt to stifle the laughter already coming from him as he finally unwraps a large stick.

“Do you like it? It’s m’favorite one.” Bro asks, looking at Dave with an expectant stare, awaiting his response with a rather serious tone.

“I love it.” Dave offers back, smiling over at him.

The next gift is relatively normal. Dave isn’t sure how Bro obtained it, but it’s a board game. It isn’t like Bro has money or even a job, so how he managed to get his paws on this Dave can’t say, but he doesn’t ask either. No, instead he just smiles while imagining how many times in the future they’ll be playing this together, how he’ll have to tell Bro the rules and likely even teach him how to play.

It’ll be great.

The last and final gift, the small one, is something that Bro tells him to be careful with.

And once he’s opened it, he can see why.

Inside the wrapping is a small, fragile ring of grass. Old, dead grass, and yet it’s been woven around itself so many times it’s quite firm, as it slips onto Dave’s finger without any protest or threat to break.

“It’s… did you make this?” Dave asks, admiring the ring upon his finger.

“Yup. In the summer.” Bro explains plainly before suddenly scooting closer.

Oh?

“You accept, then?” He asks, to which Dave blinks at him.

“What?”

“The ring. Human ring, y’know? Engagement, that’s what it’s called, right? You accept?” He asks casually like Dave completely understands.

Dave does not understand.  
“Engagement? Are you, are you fucking proposing?” Dave quickly asks, his voice suddenly piping up a few notches while his face quickly becomes bathed in red.

“Uh-huh?” Bro asks right back as if it’s quite clear what he’s doing.

“We aren’t even dating yet, what, you want to get married?” 

“Yeah? That’s what being mates is for humans, right? I.. I looked it up online, the marriage thing. ‘Thas what it is, right?” Bro suddenly doesn’t sound so sure of himself, suddenly hesitant, suddenly almost anxious.

Dave takes a few quick seconds to attempt grabbing at the current situation. This is not how proposing works but fuck, he’s a werewolf, he wouldn’t understand. The concept of him googling ‘how to marry’ is fucking golden but, but he’d said he’d made the ring in the summer? Had he been planning this? Holy shit.

“It is.. But, listen. I’m gonna keep it real with you, I’m so not ready to get fucking hitched yet. How about we just like, date? Like, be boyfriends? First, you date, then you marry later on?” Dave quickly suggests, still blatantly red in color.

Bro squints at him a bit, clearly confused but considering it for a hot minute.

“Is that being mates, too?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. We can date then.” He concludes, tail idly wagging across the floor. It’s immediately after that he comes up close, getting right in Dave’s face, lingering there a second, as though suddenly bashful, before planting a wet kiss on Dave’s lips.

Then he pulls back.

“Merry Christmas, Dave. I love you.”

“...Merry Christmas, Bro. I love you, too.”


End file.
